


Facing You, Facing West

by mallstars



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Lesbian AU, Most of this fic is exploring Katya's life tbh, Shanjubee's wedding that nobody asked for, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:52:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mallstars/pseuds/mallstars
Summary: “You look beautiful,” Katya tells Trixie, because she believes there’s nothing sadder than compliments that are felt as true but never spoken aloud.“I know!” Trixie grins, and Katya wonders if she is aware that the blush creeping up her neck betrays her cocky attitude.Katya meets Trixie at a wedding across the country. Trixie wears pink lace, cowboy boots, and plays the autoharp, and Katya falls in love with her, just for a little while.





	Facing You, Facing West

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina/gifts).



> hello friends, 
> 
> i wrote this for [nina](https://bluegrassed.tumblr.com/) because she's wonderful and she gave me a prompt. for some reason i don't understand myself, this is only VERY loosely based on the initial prompt that was basically: they meet at a wedding, pull a couple of stunts, and have sex right there.
> 
> somehow this has turned out self-indulgent and sad at the same time, and i hope you guys like it. 
> 
> if you do, or have any thoughts on it at all, please let me know here or swing by on my [tumblr](http://mallstars.tumblr.com/)
> 
> the songs I quote are rest in the bed by laura marling, facing west by the staves and say anything by tristan prettyman.
> 
> <3
> 
> edit: this fic now has the most amazing fanart, look at [this](https://bluegrassed.tumblr.com/tagged/bluegrassedart)

_Katya doesn’t believe in relationships._

“What does that even mean?” her friend Sasha asked her once, years ago over dinner, when Katya had expressed just that. “Obviously relationships exist. You can’t not believe in them. That’s like saying you don’t believe in – “she hesitated for a moment, “like saying you don’t believe in the ocean.” The ocean is a nice picture for love, Katya thought, wild, uncharted, and daunting. Sasha had just met Shea a couple of months before; was stuck in that unsettling space where she knew she wanted to spend her whole life with Shea, but wasn’t able to tell Shea quite yet, for fear of scaring her off. So instead she told Katya, over and over. That night at dinner, Katya and Sasha were having Crème brûlée after a meal entirely too fancy for them. The restaurant was spacious and luxurious, a heavy dark red carpet on the floor, and wooden tables that looked almost black in the dim light provided by candles and sparkling chandeliers over every third table. They splurged that night, mainly because they felt bad about the fact they hadn’t made time for each other in a long while. That night Katya had looked over at Sasha, her eyes glistening when she talked about Shea, and her dark red hair melting into the restaurant’s interior almost seamlessly, and thought that being in love with Sasha must be beautiful.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Katya answered. What she means is she doesn’t think relationships are for her. What she means is she doesn’t think she can make them work. What she means is she is no longer trying to make them work.

_People around Katya believe in relationships._

This is why, on a Friday in the middle of summer, Katya takes a plane from Boston to Los Angeles where tomorrow she will be a guest at her friend Juju’s wedding. Katya and Juju used to be inseparable. Sometimes, on the nights Katya spends alone in her apartment, not feeling creative enough to create, not feeling restless enough to go out and meet strangers, not feeling sad and tired enough to go to bed at seven, she allows herself moments of missing Juju and the friendship they used to share. The karaoke nights, never once tarnished by the fact that neither of them can sing. Juju calling Katya at eleven at night, asking if she can come over to do nothing but smoke and look over the streets from Katya’s balcony. Talking about a future where they live by the ocean, make art, and are carefree and at ease.

Juju went and built that future for herself. Juju met Shangela, Juju moved to LA for her, Juju lives in a spacious house in Hollywood. Juju doesn’t have much time for Katya anymore. The times they do manage to talk on the phone are funny and sweet, but get rarer and rarer with the years. “You should come to LA,” Juju often tells her. “I know you always wanted to. If you’re not happy with where you are, you can always move. You know that, right?”

_Katya isn’t unhappy with where she is._

Sure, the life she’s living doesn’t live up to the dreams she used to have for herself. Dreams of being a successful artist. Dreams of travelling the world. Dreams of being an inspiration, to whom she doesn’t know. But Katya is well into her thirties now, and has learned that dreams are sometimes just that: dreams. And that is okay. It has to be. Katya’s life is nice enough. She has an apartment, small but filled with colourful clutter, and with a balcony that lets her have her morning coffee with the wind on her face and the people on the street to watch and to keep her mind occupied. Katya teaches yoga five days a week, sometimes seven. On good days, Katya paints. Only a few of her paintings have made it onto the walls of her own apartment, and all these paintings she did when she was a lot younger, still in art school. The paintings she does now she sells, or gives away to friends as soon as they are finished. Her art means most to her when it’s shared, and sometimes she needs another person’s reaction to her art to see any meaning in it at all.

On bad days, Katya drifts through the city, restless, doing what she can to chase away the feeling of longing for something she cannot put her finger on. On those days, she often finds herself taking strangers home with her, fucking them in her single bed, the feeling of restlessness still suffocating her once they’ve left her place again. On those days, Juju’s words echo through her mind: “You can always move. You know that, right?” But she can’t, can she?

_Boston is Katya’s home._

Boston doesn’t feel like home, not when everybody has left. Katya’s parents moved to the country once Katya and her sister didn’t depend on them any longer. Katya’s friends from school and from college spread out all over the country, or the world, some of them checking in and out of Katya’s life when they come visit their family during holidays, feeling more and more distant to Katya every time they see each other. Sasha and Shea had moved to New York, where both of them saw more opportunities as artists. And, long before that, Juju had moved to LA.

When Katya wanders the streets of Boston, to get home from one of her yoga classes, to get to the coffeeshop that makes the best coffee and that is almost half an hour away from anything on Katya’s way, or to meet up with one of the few friends she has here – all of them new and still unfamiliar, she is often struck by the feeling that the city changes with every person that comes and goes. She feels this most strongly whenever she passes the ice cream parlour that used to be the favourite spot to hang out for her and her friends when they were still at college. The owner of the parlour has since changed, has exchanged the soft yellow furniture with pink and even put dark wooden flooring over the checkerboard tiles Katya used to love so much. She doesn’t think any of this would matter if her friends were still here. Home is people, and memories; home overlaps with places, but can never be just that, is always more than that.

_Katya believes in love._

She has to, in moments when love stares her straight into the face. Once she’s gotten off the plane and taken the taxi Juju had sent for her, Juju runs into her arms, smiling from ear to ear, and squeals: “Can you believe I’m getting married tomorrow? I’m so happy, Katya! I’m so happy you’re here. Was your flight okay?” and she has to believe in love. The wedding venue is beautiful. It looks like everything is ready for tomorrow’s wedding to start, so Katya isn’t quite sure why Juju asked her to come here instead of going straight to her hotel. She aches for a shower and a moment to rest her eyes.

Juju and Shangela are getting married in an excessively massive gazebo raised near the cliffs and the ocean. Everything about the place looks like it was created just with the intention to marry people here, to be the backdrop of what they believe to be one of the most important and beautiful days of their lives. Katya takes in rows and rows of tables, decorated with sunflowers and carefully ornate seating cards. Sunflowers have always been Juju’s favourite. She’s wearing them now, two little synthetic flowers dangling from her ears, and she doesn’t stop hugging Katya for minutes. She smells of rich perfume, of luxury and florals, so different from the smell of cigarettes that used to accompany her back when they spent their days in Boston together. Katya smells of cigarettes still, she knows.

“This is the most expensive-looking wedding I’ve ever been to,” Katya breathes, taking in all the unlit fairy lights, the sound stage at the back of the gazebo, the twinkling wine glasses that are standing flipped over next to every carefully folded napkin.

“I know.” Juju smiles, and takes Katya’s hand to lead her to the back of the room where Shangela is standing with a group of strangers. “Can you believe my trash ass made it here?” Like Katya, Juju had never had an abundance of money. Enough to make it through, not enough to not spend the last few nights of each month worrying about making it through. Shangela, on the other hand, has all the money in the world. Shangela is a career woman, crafty, intelligent, opportunistic, and likeable enough to make her way all the way to the top. When Juju and Katya reach Shangela, Shangela takes Juju’s hand and kisses her cheek before she even says hello to Katya. Shangela looks at Juju like she is her whole world. How could Katya not believe in love?

_Katya believes in different kinds of love._

She believes in the kind of love that makes two people meet and decide they are going to give their all to make their lives together work, through every obstacle that comes their way. She sees that love in Juju and Shangela, she sees that love in Shea and Sasha, she sees it in her parents. Katya has never felt that love before, or maybe she has, but it never lasted, and she forgot.

She believes in the love she feels for her friends and family, each of them occupying their very own space in Katya’s heart, each of them doing their part in making Katya feel happy, secure, less alone, less anxious, less unsure about herself. She makes sure to tell them she loves them whenever she can, and revels in the moment she can see the love reflected back at her in their faces.

She believes in the love she feels for some strangers. She sees them in the subway, at the grocery store, at her book club, and each of them has something about them that makes Katya feel love. The girl at the coffee shop that always has the warmest smile for Katya. The old woman working at the front desk of the yoga studio Katya teaches at, who knits socks for Katya every winter without fail. The young man who plays the piano at the mall closest to Katya’s home, his eyes always closed, lost in himself, able to drown out the noise and craziness around him and focus on himself and his music only. Katya envies his ability to drown in himself.

Some of the strangers she loves Katya spends hours and hours of passion with, revelling in her love for them, getting caught up in loving them right in this moment, and each time realizing the feeling doesn’t last, doesn’t hold up, and she doesn’t need to see them again. Sometimes she does see them again. Whenever they part for the last time, they are strangers still.

_Some people are too precious to remain strangers._

One of the people Katya doesn’t want to remain a stranger is standing right in front of her the next day, offering her her hand. She takes it, and it’s warm and slightly calloused, and the multitude of rings on her fingers dig into Katya’s skin.

“I’m Trixie,” the woman smiles at her, “I’m one of Shangie’s bridesmaids.”

“I can see that,” Katya says, and returns Trixie’s smile, gesturing to Trixie’s dress. Trixie is wearing a soft silky pink dress, lace framing her deep cleavage. It’s the same dress Katya has seen on two other women today, two women who must be Shangie’s other bridesmaids. None of them looked like they belong in this dress, but Trixie does. Trixie is tall, Trixie has strong toned arms and soft round hips, Trixie’s hair is impossibly blonde thick and wavy, and Trixie’s makeup is the harshest makeup Katya has ever seen anyone wear who isn’t about to go on a stage and perform. Of all the things Katya likes about Trixie’s appearance, she likes her white cowboy boots best. They pull her outfit into a different, completely unexpected, direction and make it look like something only Trixie could ever wear.

“You look beautiful,” Katya tells Trixie, because she believes there’s nothing sadder than compliments that are felt as true but never spoken aloud.

“I know!” Trixie grins, and Katya wonders if she is aware that the blush creeping up her neck betrays her cocky attitude.

_Katya doesn’t believe in destiny._

She doesn’t believe in a force behind things that brought her and Trixie here, and that will ensure that they will play a part in each other’s lives, whatever that part may be. She knows that if she wants to know Trixie, she has to be the one to take action.

Spending time with Trixie at this wedding proves more difficult than Katya hoped. Trixie is with Shangela right until Shangela walks to stand in front of the altar, waiting for Juju. Katya’s heart feels warm when she watches the ceremony, feels warm for Juju and Shangela, feels warm because of the flowers, the organ music, and the people shedding tears around her, some of them wearing them with pride, some of them trying to hide them, ashamed of feeling too much in a moment that isn’t about them. Still, Katya can’t stop her eyes from wandering to Trixie where she stands to the left of the altar, in her silky pink dress and the flowers in her hair, her eyes barely ever leaving Shangela. Trixie belongs to the sort of people who don’t hide their tears; they are running in two silent streaks over her cheeks, carving a trail into her heavy foundation. Trixie looks like she believes in love as well. Trixie looks like she is in love with love today. Katya wonders if Trixie is in love with a person, and who that person is, and if Trixie ever feels as restless as she does. She doesn’t look restless at all.

Katya doesn’t believe in destiny, but when, right after congratulating the newlyweds, Trixie takes a seat on the stage in the gazebo and starts playing a song on an autoharp, she forgets this for a second. Trixie’s voice is beautiful. It isn’t the strongest, and it isn’t the clearest, and it is beautiful. She cradles her auto harp in her lap, her eyes closed for most of the songs, a soft summer breeze blowing through her hair and the ocean rushing in the background.

_The first bit's the hardest I'm sure_  
_Where our shadows come to the shore_  
_Know that it's you and I till the end_  
_And all I want from life is to hold your hand_

Trixie’s words pull on Katya’s heart strings and reduce her to a haze of emotions where she sits in her chair, cross-legged like a lady, and listens to her with her elbows propped on her knees and her eyes never leaving the other woman as she plays song after song.

_Sing me a song, your voice is like silver_  
_and I don't think that I can do this anymore_  
_Show me the path down to the shoreline_  
_'cause I don't know if I can do this anymore_

Some of the words Trixie sings resonate with Katya and appear to have been written just for her, making Katya drown in them. The words Katya can’t relate to her life, however, are just as much to handle. They make Katya ache with the weight of lives she will never live and emotions she might never experience, and she wishes she could slip into another person’s life sometimes, just for one day, or maybe a year.

_If you could go anywhere, anywhere_  
_What would you see?_  
_Take a step in any direction, It's make believe_  
_If your mind is always moving_  
_Its hard to get your heart up off the ground_  
_Yeah, your mind was always moving_  
_Your thoughts never made a sound_

There’s an elderly woman sitting next to Katya that she is almost sure is Shangela’s mother. She’s watching Trixie, seeming just as transfixed as Katya is, and after two more songs Katya leans over to her to ask:

“Is she playing break up songs? At a wedding?”

The woman smiles at her, one of her teeth chipped and several others coated in gold and says:

“She always plays break-up songs, break-ups are that girl’s forte.”

_Trixie is going to make it._

Later that night, Katya feels the all-too-familiar feeling of restlessness paired with longing arise in her stomach. She’s finally talking to Trixie now, sitting on the edge of the stage, sipping their drinks, watching people on the dance floor in front of them. Trixie is younger than her, Katya doesn’t know by how much, but the way Trixie carries herself and the attitude she has towards her dreams make Katya sure of that fact. Trixie must be in her late twenties, Katya presumes.

Trixie is a musician, plays various instruments, sings, writes her own songs. Trixie plays in clubs and bars; plays covers of songs she’s told to do most of the time and only sometimes gets to play her own music. “It’s okay,” Trixie tells her, leans back onto her elbows and cocks her head upwards to where the sky is slowly turning dark and the moon is coming up behind them, “I know I’m going to make it one day.”

Trixie is fearless, or at least knows how to fool Katya into thinking she is. Where Katya openly tells everyone who is willing to listen about her doubts and her anxieties, Trixie doesn’t. Trixie is going to make it because she says she is, and even if she never actually makes it, her making it someday is her reality now, and that’s all that matters. Katya is relieved when Trixie doesn’t ask her about her own dreams, relieved and a little disappointed. Now Katya will never know what she would have answered.

_Katya can’t resist temptation._

This is a sad fact of Katya’s life, a fact that holds little poetic value. Right now, temptation stares her in the face in the form of Trixie, Trixie, who holds all the poetic value in the world, Trixie, who has her arms locked around Katya’s neck and who is moving with Katya, slowly to the music. Katya feels hot in her dark dress with the long sleeves, a dress Katya had put on for the wedding fully aware that she would overheat in it; but the dress was too exquisite to continue its life in the back of Katya’s closet, never worn. The dress almost reaches the floor and is covered in ornate patterns of gold, reds, and blues, and Katya knows she looks dazzling in it. Her lipstick matches the dark red parts of her dress, her hair is flowing openly and curly, and she smiles and smiles and smiles and is aware of the way Trixie’s eyes get caught on her lips and teeth for long stretches of time.

Trixie’s body, close to her, radiates heat and Katya feels sweet pooling on the base of her neck under Trixie’s wrists. Katya lets her hands roam over Trixie’s toned arms, they are tan against her fingers, and so strong that Katya has no doubt Trixie can achieve everything she sets her mind to. When Trixie’s eyes remain on Katya’s lips for an impossibly long moment and a trace of nervousness rushes over Trixie’s face, gone in a second, Katya leans in and meets Trixie’s soft pink lips with hers.

_Trixie’s kiss tastes like a promise._

It promises warmth, and love, and happiness, in a place far from Katya’s home, a place that could be here, or nowhere specific at all. Katya kisses Trixie and it feels different than any person she has ever kissed before. Every person feels different than the people she kissed before them, Katya reminds herself, every person feels different, kisses differently, and sometimes she falls in love for just a moment. She falls in love with the way Trixie’s arms hold her tight, she falls in love with the way Trixie smiles against her lips, falls in love with the way Trixie can kiss her here tonight, under the stars, without any qualms about people whispering about them. Katya takes this moment in, locks it into her memory for rainy days to come. The stars are twinkling above them, getting outshined by the yards and yards of fairy lights slung over every balk of the gazebo, reflected in Trixie’s eyes where she looks at Katya with wide blown pupils. Trixie smells so nice. Katya hopes she will remember her scent, will be able to connect that scent with the visuals she is sure she will be able to hold onto. Trixie’s hair smells of florals Katya has no way to further determine but that she decides must be lilacs, purple lilacs like the flowers in the crown Trixie is still wearing on her head. The skin on Trixie’s neck and clavicle that Katya is burying her nose in smells like honey, and she can see a white trace of Trixie’s honey body milk forgotten behind her right ear.

Trixie’s kiss tastes like a promise, and it’s a promise that is never made, and will therefore never be broken.

_Trixie is a family person._

Trixie hasn’t yet had the chance to be a family person, not when her family is distant and cold, but she wants to make up for all that with her own little family she will have someday. She tells Katya this when they are standing on one of the cliffs, overlooking the ocean. The crushing sounds of the waves almost drown out the noises of the wedding and the light barely reaches them. The moon is crescent and distant and it’s dark on the cliff, so dark Katya almost can't see Trixie’s face.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” Trixie says, barely loud enough for Katya to pick up her words over the waves. “I think there isn’t much I want more than that.” Katya’s arms are looped around Trixie’s waist, and she holds her a little tighter then, hiding her face in Trixie’s bare shoulder blades. A rush of wind pulls Katya’s curls into Trixie’s face from behind, and T

rixie brushes them away with a laugh. Katya doesn’t think she’ll ever be a mother, has never regarded herself as a person fit to guard over another human being. Trixie will make a wonderful mother, she thinks, Trixie with her big dreams, and her strong arms, and her cocky attitude.

“You will make a wonderful mother,” she tells Trixie, because there is nothing sadder than compliments never spoken aloud.

_Trixie takes charge._

The soft wind hits Katya’s heated skin when Trixie opens her zipper all the way to the small of Katya’s back and lets Katya’s dress drop onto the sandy stony ground at the small stretch of beach under the cliff. The beach is too small to fit the gazebo that is now towering above them, but not too small to fit Katya and Trixie, and all their passion.

Katya’s skin finally can breathe. Her back is pressed against the cold stone of the cliff and she feels a shiver run town her spine at the touch of Trixie’s soft lips on her clavicle. “Put your hands up,” Trixie demands with a whisper against Katya’s skin, and Katya looks at her with questioning eyes. As an answer, Trixie catches Katya’s wrists in her hands, circles them in a way that she barely touches Katya’s skin, and slowly moves them over Katya’s head. She puts them to rest on the cliff above Katya.

“Don’t move,” she says, and Katya won’t.

Katya’s skin is exposed, her whole body exposed for Trixie and the ocean to see, and Trixie is in her pink dress, and her cowboy boots, and Katya can’t undress her now. Trixie kisses Katya’s lips, kisses them until Katya forgets about the wedding she can still hear in the distance, forgets about the sweat on her skin, and forgets about her heels that are awkwardly digging into the sand and that she feels she missed the chance to take off. Trixie’s mouth is so warm, so sweet, and she sighs against Katya’s lips. Trixie’s hands muss up Katya’s hair, knot in it, before she slowly drags them down over Katya’s shoulders, her arms, her hips, her stomach. Katya can feel the callouses on Trixie’s palms on every inch of her skin.

When Trixie drops to her knees in front of her, for a threadlike moment Katya almost lets go off the cliff, almost braces herself on Trixie’s shoulder, almost buries herself in the woman in front of her.

But Katya doesn’t move, and Trixie does.

“Is this okay?” Trixie whispers.

A leaf sticking out from her flower crown grazes Katya’s stomach, and yes, Katya nods. God yes.

Trixie kisses Katya’s thighs, her hot breath ghosting on Katya’s skin in each break between kisses; Trixie moves from Katya’s outer thighs to the insides and finally kisses her where Katya wants her most. Katya moans, and is grateful for the wind cooling her skin. She can feel her heartbeat in her whole body.

“Mhmm,” Trixie hums, “don’t hold back, Katya, they aren’t going to hear you.”

Trixie looks up at her for a moment then, looks up from where she’s kneeling in the sand, and Katya wants and wants and wants. Trixie moves her hands to Katya’s ass and her grip is firm now, firm and hot on Katya’s skin. Trixie’s kisses get sloppier, wetter, and finally her tongue is inside Katya and Katya can see stars. They are glistening above them, bright and manifold, and the nights are never this clear in Boston. Katya hears herself repeating Trixie’s name over and over, breathy and desperate, in a voice Katya never understands as belonging to her.

_Katya is breaking the rules._

They return to the wedding only when all but five of the guests have left and Juju is asleep in her golden chair. Katya gathers her things and Shangela hugs her one last time, thanking Katya for the painting she gave them as a wedding gift.

“I loved making it,” Katya says, for the fourth time today, and she means it. Trixie leads her away then, her grasp so strong around Katya’s hands and no uncertainty in her face.

“Are you sure?” Katya asks Trixie, for the fourth time in an hour, and Trixie just nods with a grin and pulls Katya in a cab with her.

Trixie doesn’t live far from here, lives close enough that she didn’t even get a hotel room. Katya is wary about entering Trixie’s home, Trixie’s space. As a rule, Katya never goes home to a stranger. Trixie, however, is laughing and joking and light and wonderful, and Katya isn’t ready to let go of her just yet. Trixie had passed on the idea of spending the night in Katya’s hotel room, mumbling about makeup removal products, and the way she is painted, this might not by an excuse. So Katya follows Trixie into her home.

Trixie’s home is as warm as Trixie is. It is small and would have looked shabby if Trixie hadn’t painted it pink and filled it with pictures and pillows. Trixie looks like she belongs here more than any other place in the world. Katya doesn’t belong here, she knows, and her heart feels heavy with that knowledge. She wants to belong here. There’s three guitars in Trixie’s bedroom, one on the wall, one on a chair, one leaned against a wall. There’s dresses, shoes, and notebook pages, giving Katya a glimpse into Trixie’s life and she is glad she came here with her. A place isn’t a home, but a person manifests in their home, shapes their home, which then, in turn, shapes them.

From her nightstand, Trixie pulls some matches and lights candles in various places in the room. “Romance is important.” She smiles, and Katya doesn’t know if the candles are there for nights just like this one, or if Trixie lights them for herself. Maybe both, she thinks, and decides she needs to fill her own apartment with candles as well.

_Katya doesn't know Trixie._

Katya takes her time taking off Trixie’s clothes. They are standing next to Trixie’s canopy bed that takes up most of her room, the back of Trixie’s knees pressed against the wooden bedframe. Katya knows Trixie is waiting for her to give her the slightest of pushes and she will fall right down on her bed and want for Katya to climb above her. Trixie holds up her arms, waiting for Katya to pull of her dress above her head and Katya complies. Trixie’s dress pulls Trixie’s curls up with it and they fall back softly on Trixie’s tan shoulders; her curls slowly dropping out. Katya bends down to gather up Trixie’s dress and throws it on a chair in a corner of the room. Trixie’s dress is off, but still she is very much dressed: there are her stockings, thin, lacy and soft, her cowboy boots that Katya is sure she didn’t take off upon entering the apartment only because she noticed Katya’s hungry eyes on them earlier; there’s a necklace, bracelets, rings, flowers and clips in her hair and Katya pulls each item off Trixie slowly and carefully before she pushes her on the bed. Trixie lets herself fall down with a sigh. Never taking her eyes off Trixie’s body, Katya quickly undresses herself, her chunky jewellery joining Trixie’s on the nightstand.

Trixie’s body is soft and round where Katya’s isn’t and Katya traces her faded stretchmarks with her fingertips. Trixie is so beautiful, and Katya has to tell her.

“You are so beautiful,” she whispers, and Trixie smiles.

“You said that already,” she replies and kisses Katya’s mouth where Katya hovers above her.

“Someone should tell you all the time,” Katya answers “because it’s a truth.”

She hopes that when she leaves tomorrow Trixie will have somebody else by her side to tell her just that.

Trixie lies on her back on her bright floral sheets and she welcomes Katya like she isn’t a stranger. Katya straddles her now, careful not to dig her knees into Trixie’s sides. She braces herself up on her elbows, her face right over Trixie’s, close enough to feel Trixie’s warm breath on her face. Her breath still smells like the Gin and Tonic she had before they kissed for the first time, and Katya wouldn’t normally like this scent, and she loves it now.

When Katya puts her hands on Trixie’s breasts, Trixie arches her head back deep into her pillows and grips her own breasts on top of Katya’s hands, amplifying the pressure. Katya kneads Trixie’s breasts, massages around her nipples and Trixie pushes them together on her chest, more than aware of the effect this visual has on Katya. Trixie’s eyes go from Katya’s lips to Katya’s chest to her own chest, and she bits her lips and she moans, moans just for Katya. Katya is wet now, so wet, and she knows Trixie must feel this where she sits on Trixie’s hips, and Trixie never touches her, only touches herself.

Katya takes her time with Trixie. Katya is used to taking her time with people, more often than not knowing she is not going to see them again, so she wants to draw out the one moment they have with each other for as long as she can. With Trixie, taking her time is almost a game, because it makes Trixie fall apart. When Trixie started out all smiles and cockiness, touching herself and moaning, putting on a show for Katya, she is visibly impatient and frustrated now, more than once raising a slightly shaking hand in the direction of Katya’s head but then letting it drop onto the bed again. She wants Katya to be the one to want her enough that she cannot wait anymore. She doesn’t want to be the one who breaks first. So, Katya takes her time. Katya kisses Trixie’s temples, her eyelids, her neck. Her freckled shoulders and her strong arms. Katya kisses Trixie’s nipples, lets her tongue slide around them and suck lightly and Trixie’s hands tremble a little then.

If Katya knew Trixie better, if Katya knew Trixie at all, she would make sure Trixie had no other way than to be patient and to wait for Katya to give her what she needs. If she knew Trixie better, if they were at Katya’s place, Katya would get the dark red robe from her nightstand and she would tie Trixie to her bedframe. She would wrap a blindfold around Trixie’s eyes and Trixie would have to lie still and wait to see what Katya has planned for her. Trixie would wear nothing but the rope around her wrists and ankles, the blindfold, and her cowboy boots, and she would be trembling and longing and begging and Katya would make it worth her while. If Katya knew Trixie better, she’d paint her skin in red marks with her fingernails and bite her neck and shoulder until bruises formed. She doesn’t know if Trixie would want that, and she doesn’t ask.

Katya doesn’t know Trixie, and she is aware that Trixie is simultaneously much more and much less than the picture Katya has of her in her mind. Katya doesn’t know Trixie, but she knows what Trixie wants right now and Katya is ready to give that to her, and when Trixie’s hands rise up once again she takes them into hers and guides them to the back of her own head, urging her to press Katya’s head into her crotch. Trixie isn’t shaved smoothly and Katya smiles against her soft hair a little, breathing her in. With every breath she draws she feels her mind get a little hazier and she tightens her grip on Trixie’s hips and is glad for Trixie’s hands on her head, steadying her.

Katya dives into Trixie with her tongue and Trixie lets a strangled moan escape, a moan that tells Katya she is no longer putting on a show for her now and is instead getting lost in the sensations. Trixie tastes sweet and rich and Katya catches herself thinking that she could get used to this. She is glad Trixie gives her a particularly loud and deep moan right then and drags her out of the thought, back to taking in nothing but the feel of Trixie’s skin on her hands and against her face, and the pressure of Trixie’s legs and feet digging into her back where she’s wrapping them around Katya to hold her tight.

Trixie comes with Katya’s name on her lips, and Katya has never loved her own name more. Trixie’s voice breaks on the first a in Katya’s name and the rest of her name is restrained and drawn out, and Katya wants to hear it again.

Trixie pulls Katya up by her neck then, welcomes her in her arms and hugs Katya to her side. Katya wraps one arm around Trixie’s middle and buries her face in the crook of Trixie’s neck. She can feel Trixie’s heartbeat in a vein on her neck, can feel it against her cheek, and she listens to it until it slowly calms down and she cannot feel it any longer. Trixie smells of honey still, and a little bit of sweat. Katya tangles their legs together and the leather of Trixie’s boots is smooth and cold against Katya’s bare feet. Trixie kisses her temple.

“Will you stay?” she asks.

_Katya wants to stay._

Katya wants to wake up next to Trixie tomorrow morning, wants to watch the rising sun flood through the blinds and illuminate Trixie’s skin. She wants to lie next to Trixie and wait for her to wake up, then get impatient and kiss her neck until she finally opens her eyes.

Katya wants to wake up next to Trixie a year from now, and she would know at least some parts of her then. She would know what Trixie likes, who she is and who she wants to be, how to make her smile and how to give her strength. She wants to walk through this beautiful sunlit city holding Trixie’s hand, proud of being the one Trixie holds onto. Katya wants to sit across Sasha in the lavish restaurant again and Sasha would tease her “See who believes in relationships after all,” and Katya would roll her eyes and feel Trixie’s loving eyes on her face where she sits next to her.

If Katya stayed here, lived here in this place with Trixie, all her belongings would clash with Trixie’s, fighting for space and attention. Katya’s dresses, mostly black and red and witchy, would look strange next to Trixie’s soft pastel ones. Her paintings, abstract and wild, would look foreign next to the cross-stitched art of flowers and leaves that decorates Trixie’s room. Every aspect of Katya’s presence in this hopeful pink space would look wrong for all the world to see.

Katya nods.

She lets Trixie hug her close all night and she overheats in Trixie’s small room in LA in the middle of summer, and her sweaty back sticks to Trixie’s chest, and she feels more secure than she has in a long time.

In the morning the sun comes up, peeks through the blinds and illuminates Trixie’s skin in just the way Katya had imagined it. Trixie is beautiful, despite – because – of her of messy hair and slight traces of makeup still clinging to her skin where she had wiped it off in a hurry last night.

Katya turns in Trixie’s arms and looks at her sleeping face for a long moment before she inches closer and presses a soft kiss to the corner of Trixie’s slightly opened lips. She needs to get up and leave, but gives herself another few minutes to focus on every inch of Trixie’s body touching hers.

When she finally does get up, she pulls her dress over her head carelessly, discarding her underwear on Trixie’s floor. She pays a quick visit to Trixie’s bathroom, a mess of beauty products and jewellery, before she returns to Trixie’s bedroom one last time, standing still in the doorframe. The air is stuffy in the room and the street outside is quiet enough, so Katya decides to open Trixie’s window before she leaves and let in a little bit of fresh air before the air turns too hot to have a cooling effect. She walks across the room, not trying to be quiet, and pulls the window open with a loud yank. A summer breeze rushes inside. Trixie stirs and Katya hopes, but she only turns her head to the other side and continues lying in her bed in blissful unawareness. Katya fights the urge to go over to her and wake her up on purpose with her hands on her shoulders and her lips on her forehead.

She should be glad Trixie is asleep, and she gets an easy goodbye. Except, this doesn’t feel like an easy goodbye.

Without being sure why she’s doing this, Katya goes through her purse for the only lipstick she ever wears, Russian Red. She walks over to Trixie’s silver free standing mirror, wanting to leave her a message. After minutes and minutes of trying and failing to come up with the right words, she settles on writing down her phone number. She almost wipes it off again right there and then; Katya doesn’t leave her phone number for anyone. But then she walks to Trixie’s doorway with the number still there, in bright red against the glass.

Katya takes in Trixie’s sleeping form one last time, memorizing every curve and angle, and she knows she will paint Trixie soon, and this will be one of the paintings she’ll keep on her own wall. Katya takes her bag and makes her way through Trixie’s narrow hallway to her front door.

Katya leaves and this isn’t an easy goodbye at all.

_Katya wanted to stay._

When Katya is in a taxi from Boston airport to her apartment it is dark outside and the drizzling rain is distorting her view of the city through the car windows. Her phone buzzes softly in her pocket and when she takes it out her hands are cold. It’s a message from Juju enthusiastically thanking her for flying all the way out and for bringing her painting. As a lot of Juju’s messages this one ends with: _You can always move to LA, you know that, right?_

Katya puts her phone away with a sigh. Katya’s home is in Boston, and yet she doesn’t recognize the bars and casinos they are passing, and none of the people she loves most are here anymore. She goes through a week of yoga classes, painting, running errands and watching people while she smokes on her balcony, a week like any other week but for this: Katya doesn’t feel connected to her phone much, often forget to charge it and doesn’t check on it for hours. This week, this is different, and it’s a reality that riles her. Her phone is always charged, always by her side, and whenever she gets a text she hopes it’s from an unknown number from a blonde woman who smells like honey and who lives on the other side of the country.

The text she has been trying not to hope for too desperately lights up her screen on a Friday night when Katya sits with her feet propped up on the balcony railing and idly listens to a vegetable vendor justify his prices to an elderly couple.

Trixie’s message is short, on the surface barely offers her anything, and yet Katya understands it as an open invitation, an invitation for Katya to step into any direction she chooses. Trixie’s message only reads: _Hello Stranger_


End file.
